Like Poetry
by etherealogie
Summary: His eyes were exactly like a stormy sky and an iceberg and the ocean all at once, she thought. A sky about to rain on her and an iceberg headed straight towards her ship, an ocean she might drown in. Hermione's interesting Friday night routine.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This is my first ever attempt at fanfiction, so here goes. Slightly AU- if you take the events of 6th year and just push them back to occur at the end of 7th year it basically fits. Hermione is Head Girl and all hell hasn't broke loose yet. Reviews are always appreciated :) Enjoy!

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><p>The sconces in the walls were slowly dimming, leaving the corridors as murky as spilled polyjuice. Outside a full moon leeched the indigo from the sky and cast pale shadows through the windows, limming Hermione Granger's retreating form in pearly light.<p>

She was on her last round, perfunctorily checking the hallways for straggling students and absently flicking her wand with a murmured cleaning spell when she came across a lost bit of parchment or a broken quill. The last round never took long; she had only come across true stragglers once (_that_ had been an awkward run-in with a disheveled Lavender Brown and a smirking Seamus Finnegan behind one of the knights), and the cleaning up was just a kindness on her part, one less thing for Mr. Filch to worry with. He might be a mean old goat, but he was getting on up there in years, and the castle was a bugger to keep clean even with magic.

She shifted her arm against her side, pinning the book under her robes more securely as she swept away a chocolate frog wrapper. Hermione wasn't sure why she insisted on hiding the book; she hardly ever ran into anyone at this time of night, and even if she did happen to run into someone it wasn't as if the sight of Hermione Granger with a book would be anything unusual. But she hid it anyway, on the off chance that someone would see and someone would ask, and then she would be put in the awkward situation of having to make up a plausible lie.

_Or, novel idea, you could just tell them exactly what you are doing with a copy of Lord Byron's poems at midnight_, a voice at the back of her head niggled. _Honesty is the best policy, don't you know_. She resolutely told that voice to stuff it.

She reached the end of the corridor, and her round was officially complete. This was the part where the good little Head Girl would go back to her dormitory in Gryffindor Tower and go to bed, getting plenty of rest so that she could help chaperone the third year's first Hogsmeade trip the next day.

Instead, Hermione turned and walked down the next hall, headed towards the courtyard. She walked as fast as she could without actually running, slipping the poetry book from within her robes and clutching it to her chest.

When she reached the door, she sucked in her breath before she pushed it open. It squealed just a bit, and she muttered a quick _muffliato_ before opening it the rest of the way.

He had beaten her there, as always. The moon was almost the same color as his hair, lighting it up like pale fire in the shadows of the courtyard. It fell over his eyes but he paid no attention to it, absorbed by the book in his lap. The dark green of his robes blended in with the shadows on the stone, and if not for the occasional turn of a page he would look like a statue, hard and pale.

She studied him for a moment. Only when he was reading did his face relax, the semi-permanent line between his pale brows smooth. It was the only time he looked like a seventeen year old boy rather than a war-hardened man.

He didn't remain oblivious to her presence for long. With barely a sound, he closed the book and turned to look back at her. His grey eyes were softer than normal, more like a stormy sky than an iceberg.

He smiled, sort of; a bare lifting of the corner of his mouth. He held up the book. "I'm finished."

Hermione sat next to him on the bench. They sat far enough away from each other that no parts of them were touching, even though to accomplish this meant a fair level of discomfort from both parties. Hermione took the book he held out to her, trading him for the one she held. "How did you like Eliot?"

"Very well. I especially liked that one with the hollow men and the girl with the hyacinths."

"The Wasteland. It's quite good."

Draco nodded once. "It's…fitting."

Their breath puffed out of their mouths in the cold, swirling and intermingling until Hermione couldn't tell whose was whose. Draco studied the new book in his hands.

"This one is a bit different than Eliot. He's…softer, I think. "

Draco smirked. "So not as situationally appropriate, then?"

"I suppose not." Hermione fiddled with the hem of her robes.

Their strange arrangement of meeting every Friday had gone on since almost the beginning of the term, when she had stumbled upon him in the courtyard on her rounds reading a tattered paperback of The Iliad.

"_Out after hours, Malfoy?" Hermione crossed her arms and smirked. This was her first time actually finding a wayward student during her rounds and she was spoiling to actually assert her Head Girl authority. The fact that her first victim would be Draco Malfoy was only icing on the proverbial cake._

_He had been sitting on the stone bench, bent over something in his lap, blonde hair falling over his forehead. At her voice he jumped up, upsetting whatever had been in his lap. A paperback book fell to the ground, spine up._

"_Granger," he snarled. "I could ask you the same question. Why are you skulking around like that flea-bitten cat of yours?"_

"_I'm Head Girl, Malfoy, if you missed the memo. 'Skulking around' is part of my duties." With a disgusted sigh, she bent to pick up the fallen book. Of course Malfoy would treat a book so; he had no respect for people, so she wasn't surprised that what she considered sacred objects would be no different._

_He jumped ahead of her, grabbing the book and stuffing it in his robes. He looked almost…embarrassed? Fearful?_

_Hermione's brows knit in puzzlement. "Accio book."_

_The paperback sailed from Malfoy's pocket and into her hands. Snarling, Malfoy reached for his wand. _

"_Expelliarmus," Hermione muttered, turning the book over in her hands. The Iliad. A Muggle classic. She heard a muffled clatter as Draco's wand landed somewhere behind her. Without taking her eyes from the book cover, she reached down and stuffed the wand in her pocket._

_She looked up at the blonde Slytherin, biting her lip. His eyes were like a cornered cat, staring at a spot on the ground; his fists sporadically opened and closed, leaving crescent nail marks in his palms._

_Hermione held up the book. "The Iliad?"_

_Draco nodded. "Yes."_

"_Yours?"_

_He didn't answer. He looked up from the ground, at her. He was biting his lip so hard it was white._

"_You know this was written by a Muggle, don't you?"_

"_I'm not bloody stupid, Granger."_

_ "I'm just surprised that someone of your pure, noble upbringing would lower themselves to possessing, let alone reading, a piece of literature written by those of 'inferior blood'-"_

_ "It's not mine, I found it in the bloody hallway!" Malfoy's eyes were dark, like a stormy sea, and his voice was harsh enough to make Hermione take a step back. "If you think I would part with so much a knut to actually own something associated with a filthy Mudblood-"_

_ "I don't care where you got the bloody book, Malfoy." Hermione tucked The Iliad into her pocket with his wand. "With your grades, I'm surprised you can even comprehend it. But you are out after hours, and you have used profanity multiple times during our conversation here, and for that it will be my pleasure to assign you detention with McGonagall for the next three nights, starting at seven and ending at ten."_

_ Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Since when is profanity a detention earning offense?"_

_ Hermione gave him a Cheshire grin. "It's not. I'll inform the professor that you will be seeing her tomorrow night._

_ "Fine. Give me my wand."_

_ "I'll give it to McGonagall. She can give it to you when you report for detention."_

_ Malfoy turned on his heel, muttering things that sounded suspiciously like more profanity. He had almost reached the door to the castle when he turned and looked at her. "If you tell…" he said softly. "If you tell anyone, Granger… you have no idea what the consequences could be." He opened the door and left. It shut behind him with a dull thud._

Malfoy had reported for detention as scheduled. On the third night of his detention, Hermione ran into him coming out of McGonagall's office. She slipped The Iliad she had confiscated and her own copy of The Odyssey out of her robes and into his hands. He looked at her, just for a moment, and then moved on, slipping the books into his robes and not looking back. That Friday he had been in the courtyard, and returned the books without a word. Hermione had had another one in her pocket, _The_ _Stranger_ by Albert Camus. She handed it to him, took the other books, and left without a word. Since then, their strange arrangement had become routine.

Hermione picked at her fingernails nervously. She had debated whether to give Malfoy this particular book, but she was running out of books to lend him. He was a voracious reader, it turned out; he read almost as much as she did. He had read through most of her personal library in only a little over three months.

She had lent him the less personal books first- the novels she read once and then placed carefully in her trunk. He read all of them, and then tore through her biographies in record time, even after she started giving him two or three a week. After that he had started on her poetry collections. Before that, they hadn't really spoken during their encounters. But once he started reading the poetry, they began actually speaking to one another. The conversations started out stilted and awkward, but as time went on they were able to actually discuss the poetry. Sometimes they even made eye contact.

Her copy of Lord Byron's love poems was heavily highlighted and dog-eared, passages marked and notes made on almost every page. It was the book she had owned for the longest and read the most. She hadn't been sure about sharing it with Malfoy, but in the end she stuck it in her robes and came on. She watched his face as he flipped through it.

That bare curve graced the corner of his lip again. "Not situationally appropriate at all, it appears," he said softly. He closed the book and looked at her. "Is it?"

His eyes were exactly like a stormy sky and an iceberg and the ocean all at once, she thought. A sky about to rain on her and an iceberg headed straight towards her ship, an ocean she might drown in. "No," she said quietly. "Not at all."

Malfoy looked at her a moment longer, the breeze teasing his moonbeam hair. Then he smirked. "You should go to bed, Granger. Big day with the kiddies tomorrow and all."

"Yes," Hermione stood, brushing off her robes and smoothing her unruly hair. "I should be going." She turned and walked hurriedly away, towards the safety of her room and her fireplace and the promise of a cup of tea that would hopefully make her not think too much before she tried to sleep.

"Hermione," he called softly. She turned around.

He held up the book of love poems. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, Draco."

He smirked. "Next Friday?"

She nodded. "Next Friday."

Then the turned and walked away in opposite directions, and the courtyard was empty and silent but for the moonlight and the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors Note: **Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! :) Because of the amount of messages I've gotten wanting this to be extended, I've decided to make this a 3-chaper fic instead of a one-shot. So here's the next chapter :) Review review review, please!

Oh and also I don't own Harry Potter. In case that needed clarification.

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><p>She had finally run out of books. The novels, the biographies, the poetry, he'd read them all. The only one she had left that she hadn't lent him was <em>Hogwarts, A History<em>, but she was fairly sure that if she showed up tonight with that one it would mark the end of their midnight meetings.

Which is how it should be. He'd read all her books and that was all there was to their arrangement. And so here endeth the meetings.

Hermione Granger was a creature of habit. She liked having a to-do list and checking things off of it. Bugger, she wrote things she had already done on her to-do list just so that she could mark them off. She ate the same thing in the Great Hall for breakfast (blueberry muffin with scrambled eggs and Earl Grey), was in the shower by promptly 6:30 every the morning, and arrived at Advanced Numerology at 7:45, fifteen minutes before class started. She was always done with her rounds and in her dormitory by eleven, when she made another mug of tea and read up on whatever her pet research project was at the moment until 11:30, when she went to bed.

Except for Friday nights. Friday nights she completed her rounds at midnight, had a few slight moments of unreasonable guilt when she reached the door to the outer courtyard at 12:05, and by 12:06 she was seated on the bench with Malfoy, staring at her fingernails and haltingly discussing poetry.

Groaning, she picked up _Hogwarts, A History_ and shoved it under her robes as she grabbed her wand and headed out for final rounds.

_Routine, routine, routine_, she chanted in her head. _Just for the sake of routine._

_ Routine, my arse, _said that voice at the back of her head. Hermione sped up even though she was pretty sure there was no way to outrun your own brain.

She went through the corridors, checking behind curtains and statues, bidding a polite goodnight to the portraits that paid her the same courtesy. The moon was full in the sky before she was halfway done, casting shadows that wriggled and stretched on the stone floors.

Final rounds could be a challenge for some. Lavender Brown in particular was vehement in her personal opposition to wandering the castle alone at night when Hermione was officially chosen as Head Girl at the end of sixth year.

_"It's so creepy!" Lavender shivered, causing her glass of orange juice to get dangerously close to sloshing over the edge. "Just you, alone, at night, in the dark…"_

_ "Hogwarts is the same at night as it is during the day, Lavender," Hermione said, shaking her head as she sipped her tea. "Just a bit darker, and not as many prats in the hallways."_

_ "Still." Lavender put her orange juice down after a hearty gulp. "I wouldn't do it. I'm willing to pass on a room of my own if I have to put my life on the line nightly, thanks very much."_

_ Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's hardly life-threatening, Lavender."_

_ Ron grinned at her. "Hermione has plenty of experience wandering the grounds at night. Only this time she's visible."_

Thinking of Ron made her tight-lipped. She wasn't sure what was going on there lately. He had become much more… observant of her, she supposed was the best way to put it. He smiled at her more, mentioned inside jokes more, got closer when he talked to her than he had in the past. Hermione didn't exactly feel uncomfortable; she just wasn't sure what to make of it. She had attempted to discuss it with Harry, once- he hadn't the slightest idea of what she was talking about and was no help at all. "Ron's just being Ron, you know," was his sage advice. "He's an odd one."

_Deal with them later_, her brain told her. _You have bigger things to be analyzing._

First and foremost being why exactly she was speed walking to the courtyard with a history book she was probably the only person under 45 to ever complete clutched under her arm.

"_Muffliato_," she muttered, pulling the door open and pushing her analyzing to the back of her mental to-do list.

He was there. Instead of reading he was just staring at the moon. It reflected in his eyes- two smaller silver twins to the one in the sky. He heard her coming and turned to watch her approach.

She slowed down when he watched her, movements becoming awkward and tense with the knowledge of observance. The wind tugged at her already wild brown hair; she smoothed it with her hand, hoping she didn't look too nervous. When she sat next to him, he scooted over like always, just enough movement to be perceptible.

If she wasn't mistaken, though, the distance between them had slowly begun to close.

He spoke first, which was unusual. "You have more books that I could have thought possible for one person to fit in their school trunk."

"That's because I only have one pair of robes, so I save room." She grinned slightly, so he would know she was kidding.

His eyes widened and he smirked. "So that's the smell."

"And all this time you thought it was my blood."

Her eyes widened as soon as the words left her lips, mouth falling slightly open. _You really just said that, didn't you, Granger?_ It was all she could do to not clap her hand over her mouth. His eyes were as big as the moon, and he quickly looked away from her, down at his shoes.

She picked at her fingernails, berating herself for letting that come out. Whatever his prejudices, they seemed to be suspended for their magical half-hour in the moolit courtyard, and for all she knew her snide little joke had sent them all crashing back. Any moment now he was going to call her a Mudblood and stomp away and her routine would be in shambles.

Because that's what this is about. Keeping the routine intact.

But he didn't leave. Instead he… chuckled.

She looked up at him, eyebrows knit. He wasn't exactly smiling, but neither was his face a twisted mask of prejudice. His lips were barely curved, barely parted, and a tiny, husky chuckle escaped them.

Well. That was unexpected.

Draco groped in his pocket and pulled out Lord Byron. Hermione's cheeks instantly heated. She had wondered many times over the last week what exactly she was thinking giving one of her worst childhood enemies the most personal book she owned, and she wasn't exactly sure what he was going to say about it.

He placed it in her lap. "This one was very good."

She nodded. 'It's my favorite."

"I can tell." She was still studying her shoelaces, but she could hear the smirk in his voice. "It was heavily annotated. For personal reasons or for research, Granger?"

Her lips twisted in a wry smile. "A bit of both. "

"Which bits were which?"

"I'll let you decide."

She looked up, and he was looking at her. It was a different looking that she was used to seeing on Malfoy. There was no hint of a snarl, no line between his brows; he didn't look like he was about to fly into fight-or-flight response. Draco was just _looking_ at her, and Hermione really felt _seen_.

She bit her lip and broke the eye contact first, looking into the sky. She shivered and wrapped her robe tighter around her shoulders. "The moon is getting brighter and the weather is getting colder. You can tell it'll be winter soon."

"That generally happens, after autumn," Malfoy deadpanned. The slight snarl in his voice was back; it had more of a bit than the smirk did. "So, anything new?"

Here it was. Hermione withdrew the book from her robes. "Um… I have this."

Malfoy took it from her hands. "_Hogwarts, A History_," he breathed, his breath puffing in the air. He shook his head. "We must really be nearing the end of the rope."

She shrugged, not looking at him. "It's all I have left. You've read all the others."

That took him aback. "You mean I've read the entire personal library of Hermione Granger, Bookworm extraordinaire? I should have a plaque made."

She rolled her eyes. "I would applaud, but my fear of frostbite outweighs my pride in your accomplishments."

He opened the front cover. "Property of Miss Hermione Jean Granger", he read. "You were an uppity little snit, weren't you?"

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the pot calling the kettle black."

He snorted. "Touche." There was another beat of awkward silence. "You're crazy if you think I'm actually going to read this, Granger."

She sighed. "I knew it was a long shot."

"I wouldn't even have to sneak around to finish it like I did with your Muggle books. At least with them I could get a bit of a rush out of it, even if they were dull as hell. This is a sodding textbook, for Salazar's sake."

Hermione gave him a pointed look. "Yes, I am aware. I actually do my schoolwork instead of bullying Gregory Goyle into doing it for me. Which, by the way, is a waste of effort; you could take it to the Owlry and find a bird that would earn you more points on the homework."

She stood. This had gone on long enough, and she needed to cut her loses and split before she…

_What, Hermione? Before you get attached and get yourself in for a world of hurt?_

She pushed the voice back again and held out her hand. "That's all I have. If you aren't going to read it, then I guess I'll be going. It's been… " She didn't really know how to finish that sentence, so she didn't.

He looked at her, brow slightly furrowed, and handed the book back. Hermione spun on her heel and started towards the door.

"Granger," he said, and she stopped just because there was osmething in the catch of his voice she couldn't identify, not coming from _him_. He sounded… apologetic? No. Not Malfoy, for crying out loud. He never apologized for anything.

Regardless, she turned around. He was standing, and the moonlight lit him from behind. He looked like some avenging fallen angel, his pale hair a firey crown tossed by the wind.

"Look, I'm"… he swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing. His face twisted like he was searching very hard for something. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"I'm not offended." Hermione scuffed the toe of her shoe on the stone. "I just don't have any more books, and since that's why we were meeting…"

He nodded. "Yeah… that… that was it."

She noticed she was shifting her weight back and forth on her feet. Nervous habit. "So I'll be going. Um… I'll be seeing you, I guess."

"Hermione." His voice was different, this time, even from when he had stopped her from going before. She stood still. His eyes were that soft ocean color again and they rooted her to the spot.

"Why did you give me that book?" The question came out as barely a whisper, but it came across so clear to her it was like he screamed it.

She gave herself a mental shake so that she could move again, and shrugged slightly. She couldn't take those eyes anymore so she stared at the Slytherin badge on his robes. "I just… had it. And I thought… I thought you might like it, maybe."

He was still for a moment, and then he nodded. "You thought I might like it," he said softly. "Yeah."

They were silent. Neither one really knew what to say.

Hermione nodded, once, decisively. "Well." She nodded again. "I'll see you around, Draco." She turned again.

It was so quiet, she couldn't be sure if she had heard correctly. She stopped again, turned around. Her stomach was doing flip-flops and she wasn't exactly sure why. "What was that?"

He looked up from the ground, straight into her eyes. "I said, next Friday?"

She opened and closed her mouth a few times like a landed fish before her scrambled brain really comprehended. "But that was the last book-"

"I don't give a bloody damn about the books," he said, and his voice was full of a quiet intensity she had never heard from him before. His eyes were locked on hers. "Are you going to meet me here next Friday or not?"

She really shouldn't. She really, _really_ shouldn't. Bugger routine, this was turning into something much different than she expected.

_Different than what you wanted, though?_ That was a more difficult question to answer.

Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "Next Friday, then."

Then she turned and walked back into the castle, her brain as scrambled as her morning eggs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Well, again, this was going to be the last chapter. But it's not, I have continued as per many requests... hope you like it! Reviews make me smile, so leave one :)

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><p>Her tea was cold.<p>

She had been sitting in her squashy armchair and staring into it for the past fifteen minutes, watching the steam curl up from the lip of the mug and disappear. It was like cold breath in a stone courtyard-

_Oh bugger. Think about something else._

It was snowing. A bit early in the season, but fat white flakes were sailing past her window and settling on the sill. They melted almost as soon as they landed, but the world outside still held onto that icy glamour Hermione had always loved, with the promise of more to come. Her homework lay unfinished on her coffee table, with a precarious stack of books next to it. She had been researching magical tattoos lately- what sort of blood magic went into them, how binding they were. She needed a few books from the restricted section, and filling out the necessary paperwork for them had killed a bit of time earlier in the evening. She'd considered going to the Gryffindor common room and seeing her friends, but she was wound too tight. She was wound too tight to do much of anything.

Tonight had been the spectre that haunted her steps all week, making her jumpy , making her lose focus. She'd almost burnt her potion beyond recognition in class on Monday, had completely forgotten about a Numerology essay that was due on Wednesday morning and had to do it all on Tuesday night, and on Thursday she had foisted her section of the castle to patrol off on Blaise, the Head Boy, and gone right to sleep.

Now it was Friday and she still didn't know what she was going to do.

_ You told him you would meet him. So you should at least show up. If nothing else than just to tell him that…_

What exactly? That she wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but that she was ok with that and that she wanted whatever it was to continue? To demand that he_ tell_ her what it was? To royally tell him off like he had coming all these years and huff away in a fit of vindictive glory?

Hermione groaned and massaged her temples. She felt a headache coming on. Being out in the cold once a week was doing nothing for her sinuses.

She dumped the cold tea and checked the time. It was 10:45. Time to start evening rounds.

She was almost out the door when she looked back at her window. Still snowing. She went to her bedroom and pulled on a sweater and an extra pair of socks, then slipped into the hallway. It wouldn't do for her to catch pneumonia in the courtyard.

She completed rounds on autopilot, her mind frantically working over what she was going to say, how she was going to handle this. She assumed Malfoy wouldn't want to meet if he didn't have a very specific item he wanted to discuss. She wasn't ready to consider the possibility that he wanted her to be in the courtyard at midnight just because he desired her presence; there had to be something else, something she could figure out if she just analyzed their past meetings closely enough.

As she walked down the last corridor, she still had no clue. Her hands were almost shaking as she drew out her wand to clear up what looked to be a puddle of spilled butterbeer and pulled back a tapestry depicting a joust to check the large window seat behind it.

She would just ask him, she decided. Just march out there and ask what exactly this was all about. And then she could decide where to go from there.

She slowed down as she approached the door. It loomed in front of her. Straightening her robes, Hermione cast the _Muffliato_ and shoved it open. She marched out into the cold, the wind swirling her cloak around her and making her glad for the extra sweater.

He was pacing, not sitting like before, and he didn't notice her approach. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was set in a tight line; his usually immaculate hair was slightly disheveled. As she watched he reached up and scrubbed his hands through it, wiping his face as he brought them back down. This was as un-Malfoy as she'd ever seen him; he looked lost and almost frightened rather than arrogant and self-assured.

Hermione realized that maybe Malfoy was as confused about his reasons for this meeting as she was. It was less than reassuring.

He didn't notice her until she was almost right next to him. When they made eye contact he still looked a bit like a cornered animal, but that lost look went away. Her presence seemed to anchor him, and his grey gaze kept her rooted to the spot.

She broke the silence first. "I'm here."

He nodded. "Miracle number one."

"You didn't think I'd come?"

"I certainly had my doubts." They were still making eye contact, a record time for them. The intensity of his stare was unnerving, but Hermione couldn't quite look away. She could see the way his breath clouded from his lips, the pattern of it as it swirled and mingled with hers, but this time she could feel the warmth of it on her face; she could feel warmth radiating off of him in waves. She wondered how someone who looked so much like ice could possibly generate so much heat. "I might not have come, if I were you. If some prat who made my life hell suddenly asked me to meet him in a courtyard at midnight for no discernible reason, I probably wouldn't show up."

She knit her brows. "Well, I'm not like you."

A simple enough statement, but it seemed almost like a physical blow to him. His eyes immediately broke from hers, focused on a spot on the ground, and he nodded weakly. "No," he said softly, and she heard the wry chuckle again. "No, you most definitely are not, Hermione Granger. Nothing like me."

He sat down on the cold bench, hunched slightly over his knees. After a moment's hesitation, Hermione joined him.

"So tell me why I'm here."

He looked from his shoes to her. "Honestly?"

She nodded. "Honestly. It's the best policy, I'm told."

He stared at her a moment longer. There was the chuckle again, but it was harsher, and there was some other emotion hidden in it that Hermione couldn't identify. "I have no bloody idea, Granger. I just didn't want the last time I spoke to you to be about some buggered book."

She bit her lip and nodded, carefully measuring her words. "I was unaware that the manner in which we speak to one another had any importance to you."

"Well, it does," he said harshly, and she could just detect the sneer. "I don't know why, it makes no sense at all, but I sure as hell didn't want the last time we spoke to be last Friday night."

Hermione searched for appropriate words, but for once her vocabulary failed her. She settled for "Oh."

They were silent. The flakes were falling harder now, and they were starting to stick. Hermione had snowflakes in her eyelashes. She looked over and saw snow in Draco's hair, barely noticeable against the near-white. She noticed he was only wearing his school cloak and a t-shirt, but he didn't even shiver. The cold must not bother people made of ice.

"Well," she said softly. "What do you want the last thing we talk about to be, then?"

He didn't look up. "Is this the last time?"

She looked at him. "If you want it to be."

He was silent. Snow settled in the collar of his robe, and he finally seemed to notice it, shivering.

"You should have worn more clothes", Hermione scolded. She unwrapped her Gryffindor scarf from around her neck. "All that pure blood can't circulate that well." She offered the scarf to him.

He stared at it, then at her. His mouth started to curl upwards in a snarl, but it stopped at just enough curve to be a slight smile instead. He took the proffered scarf and wound it once around his neck. "If anyone sees me with this, I'm dead."

He said it in a joking manner, but she wondered how much of it was really joking.

He straightened up. "I want the last thing we talk about to be you."

Well. That was unexpected. Hermione gave him a quizzical eyebrow. "Me?"

"The one and only Hermione Granger."  
>"May I ask why?"<p>

"Because I don't understand you," he said quietly. "You… You defy everything I thought I knew. You shouldn't be smart. According to my father, you shouldn't even have the mental capacities to read, and yet you have the biggest collection of actual books I have ever seen one person amass, and you've read them all, multiple times. You kick my arse on every exam. And… you're funny," he said, like it still shocked him. "You not only are smart, you're witty. And you're kind, and you're sodding brave. You stand up for yourself. You don't let anyone make your decisions for you." This last part was quiet, and he looked down, like he was ashamed of himself. She wondered how much of what she labeled "Malfoy" was _actually_ Malfoy, and not some fabricated façade to please someone else.

Hermione sat and studied the pattern of the snowflakes melting on her clasped hands. "I'm hardly all of that", she finally said, biting her lip. "And even if I was, why would it be so surprising? I pay more attention to books than I do to people, so I guess being smart just… occurs… and the others I'm not sure about…" She smiled wryly, wrangling bravado she didn't feel, and pointed to her scarf wrapped around Malfoy's throat. "Well, I guess being around all those Gryffindors rubs off on you. Though half the time I'd call it stupidity and dumb luck rather than bravery."

But instead of being reassured, Draco seemed almost desperate. Words kept pouring out of him like a dam had finally been breached, like if he didn't say it now he never would. "But you're a Mudblood, Granger! You're dirty and tainted and filthy! If my father knew I'd said two words to you, much less actually met you somewhere on purpose-" He ran a hand through his hair again, it was almost standing on end. He shook his head, almost in a gesture of defeat. "You're making my life very difficult, Hermione."

She was silent. Her mind was spinning, trying to sort and assimilate this information with everything she already knew about Malfoy, to keep him organized in his neat little box. He refused to synthesize. "Well you're hardly simplifying mine either, Malfoy!"

He looked at her incredulously. "Do explain."

With a frustrated growl, Hermione stood, pacing in front of the stone bench. "You're just supposed to be some prat that bullied me when I was a kid! Better yet, you're supposed to be the tangible prescence of everything I have helped fight against for the past seven years, ever since Vol-" she quieted, sighing. "Since You-Know-Who came back. You're what I supposed to think of when I think about the enemy, you're supposed to be the face I put on it. Hell, Harry and Ron have an easy time of it, pegging you as Supreme Death Eater. And what am I supposed to do now, now that I know that you like poetry and you read almost as much as I do, and that you're as confused and lost as I am! You don't fit in your proper place in my head anymore, and it makes seeing you bloody hard!"

She had stopped pacing and was standing in front of him now, her voice raised much higher than she meant for it to be, fists clenched at her sides. Shaking her head, she sighed, wilted. "What am I supposed to do now, Draco?"

He stood up, his eyes blazing. For a spilt second Hermione thought that this was it, that he was going to pull out his wand and they would blast each other into oblivion for the offense of breaking their respective mental boxes. Instead, he grabbed her hand and held it to his face, palm up. His finger traced the lines in her palm.

"He says he can smell it," he whispered, eyes glued to her skin. "The tainted blood." His fingers stopped tracing, and entwined with hers instead. "I've tried and I've tried, but I can't." His other hand was brushing her face, now, leaving trails of fire behind his fingers. Hermione shivered and it had nothing to do with the snow that was rapidly covering the courtyard in a blanket of white. "All I can smell on you is tea leaves and honey, sometimes a hint of vanilla, never anything tainted."

His eyes went from her chin to her lips, her cheekbones. He brushed her wild hair out of her eyes. "And I… bloody hell, Granger, I don't know how a tainted thing could look like you do."

Then his lips were crushing hers, and she didn't do anything to stop it. Her brain was screaming at her to analyze this, make this fit, but she ignored it and wrapped her arms around his tall, lean frame, leaning into him to block the wind and the cold.

As kisses went, it wasn't one of the longer ones, but when she came up for air Hermione's face was heated and her breath was labored.

Draco leaned his forehead against hers, eyes squeezed shut. "What do we do now, Hermione?"

She didn't have words, so she kept her arms wrapped around him instead, while the snow fell around them and covered the world in pure, unbroken white.

* * *

><p>again, thanks so much for taking time to read this and tell me your thoughts. I'm considering writing a short companion piece to this or just continuing with this one. If you would approve, let me know and keep an eye out!<p>

love,

etherealogie


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